text model comparison
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Mistral Large 4
Gemini 3.6 Flash and Mistral Large 4 are both current text models, from Google and Mistral AI. Mistral Large 4 is 9% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Gemini 3.6 Flash, $1.36 vs $1.50. On Arena Text, Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 1482 Elo and Mistral Large 4 1429 Elo (Arena, measured October 8, 2026). Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,048,576 and 1,000,000).
Data verified October 12, 2026 · Dataset 2026-10-12
Side by side
Standard-tier prices in effect today. The better value in each row is highlighted.
| Fact | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mistral Large 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Price per 1M input tokens | $1.50 | $1.36 (better) |
| Price per 1M output tokens | $7.50 | $4.18 (better) |
| Cost of 10M input and 2M output tokens | $30 | $21.96 (better) |
| Arena Text | 1482 Elo (#13 of 39) (better) | 1429 Elo (#34 of 39) |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.2% (#11 of 34) (better) | 20% (#32 of 34) |
| GPQA Diamond | 94.1% (#8 of 37) | Not measured |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) | 58.9% (#27 of 37) | Not measured |
| Provider | Mistral AI | |
| Release date | July 21, 2026 | October 6, 2026 |
| Access | API only | API only |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens | Not reported |
| Input | text, image, audio, video | text, image |
| Output | text | text |
When to choose each
Gemini 3.6 Flash
Best for
- Current multimodal agentic evaluations balancing speed and capability
Watch out for
- Not in the pinned LiveBench snapshot; its independent scores here come from Epoch AI's own GPQA Diamond, FrontierMath and SimpleQA Verified runs
Mistral Large 4
Best for
- European data-residency workloads that want a frontier-scale multimodal model
- Teams planning to self-host once the open weights ship
Watch out for
- This is a public preview: Mistral says the reinforcement learning run is still in flight and the model will keep changing
- Weights and their licence were not published at the time of this update, so it is recorded as API-only
- Mistral offered a temporary 50% launch discount; the recorded rates are the list prices
- Epoch AI measured 20.0% on SimpleQA Verified, low for its size, so check factual recall on your own questions
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Mistral Large 4 FAQ
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Mistral Large 4?
Mistral Large 4 is 9% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Gemini 3.6 Flash, $1.36 vs $1.50. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $30 and Mistral Large 4 $21.96 at standard rates.
Which scores higher on independent benchmarks, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Mistral Large 4?
Gemini 3.6 Flash leads on Arena Text, 1482 Elo to 1429 Elo; Gemini 3.6 Flash leads on SimpleQA Verified, 66.2% to 20%. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.
Which has the larger context window, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Mistral Large 4?
Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,048,576 and 1,000,000).
Related comparisons
Production evaluation
Choosing between Gemini 3.6 Flash and Mistral Large 4?
Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.
- A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
- Routing between models by cost and difficulty